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The WI has welcomed transgender women as members for more than 40 years, but said it felt it ‘had no other choice’ to now exclude them
Kate DevlinWednesday 03 December 2025 11:25 GMTComments
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Transgender women will be banned from joining the Women's Institute from April next year, with the organisation saying it “had had no other choice” following the Supreme Court ruling.
The decision, which overturns a 40-year-old policy, has been taken "with the utmost regret and sadness", it said, adding that it retained the "firm belief that transgender women are women".
The U-turn had been made in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling earlier this year on biological sex, The National Federation of Women's Institutes (NFWI) said.
It comes just a day after Girlguiding announced it would also ban trans girls from joining.
NFWI chief executive Melissa Green: said: "It is with the utmost regret and sadness that we must announce that from April 2026, we can no longer offer formal membership to transgender women.
"As an organisation that has proudly welcomed transgender women into our membership for more than 40 years, this is not something we would do unless we felt that we had no other choice.
"To be able to continue operating as the Women's Institute, a legally recognised women's organisation and charity, we must act in accordance with the Supreme Court's judgment and restrict formal membership to biological women only. However, this change is only in respect to our membership policy and does not change our firm belief that transgender women are women."
The NFWI said while it can no longer "legally offer formal membership to transgender women" after the Supreme Court ruling, the organisation will "bring forward programmes to continue to extend fellowship, sisterhood, and support to transgender women".
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